The government has assured local fishing communities that smaller boats will be excluded from the ban.

On a windy afternoon last Monday, just a few hours after Chennai had been doused by a short spell of early November showers, a group of fishermen played a game of cards on the sands of Marina beach under a small makeshift shelter. Scores of fishing boats were docked securely in the distance. Bad weather did not allow them to fish that day.

These fishermen face the prospect of several such idle days over the next seven months. While the November-January period is the time of the North East monsoon when fishermen venture out only if the weather is good, a state government notification banning fishing from January 1 to April 30 is likely to ground the fishing community for a longer period this time. And they are not happy.

Vulnerable sea turtles

The November to April period is when thousands of vulnerable olive ridley sea turtles come from the ocean to nest on vast stretches of the Tamil Nadu shore. However, as a result of mechanised fishing, hundreds of these migratory turtles get trapped in the vast nets of fishing trawlers, and drown.

To prevent this from happening in the upcoming nesting season, the Tamil Nadu government, on September 27, passed an order announcing the “prohibition of fishing by any kind of fishing vessels in a radius of five nautical miles [approximately nine km] around potential nesting and breeding sites of sea turtles in the coastal areas under Tamil Nadu Marine Fishing Regulation Act 1983”.

The government order has identified over 100 stretches of coastline across eight districts in Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, where the ban will apply to mechanised fishing vessels, motorised country crafts and mechanised fishing techniques

This order has raised a flurry of protests from artisanal fishing communities – small-scale fishermen – who use motorised fibre boats that usually do not venture beyond the zone incorporated in the ban.

“Our livelihood will be destroyed if we don’t fish for these four months,” said V Gowrilingam, the head of a fishing community in Kancheepuram district to the south of Chennai. “This is the period which is good for fishing when the sea is calm. In addition, there is a 45-day fishing ban from mid-April to May-end during the fish breeding season. What will we do if we can’t fish for so long?”

Harm to artisanal fishing

While olive ridley turtles are often trapped in fishing nets, conservationists said that a relatively low number are harmed due to artisanal fishing, which is done on a small scale. They add that a blanket ban on fishing vessels in the demarcated zones will harm conservation efforts instead.

“Including country boats in the order is very wrong and makes no sense – they cause very minimal harm to sea turtles,” said Akila Balu, coordinator at Students Sea Turtle Conservation Network, a volunteer group working to conserve and create awareness about olive ridley turtles. “It is the big mechanised trawler boats that cause most of the damage. Artisanal fishermen are already struggling for survival. Their catch is very low nowadays, with so much competition and so little fish available to them due to over-fishing in recent years.”

K Bharati, the vice-president of Mylai Nochikuppam Fishermen’s Cooperative Society, said that his entire village had invested around Rs 5 crores for its 150 boats. “If these boats are docked for four months and not taken out to sea, they will rot,” he said.

Turtle conservationists are worried that the ban will cause tensions between conservation groups and fishing communities, who have worked well together in the past.

“By putting these restrictions on them, you are making an entire community enemies of conservation,” said Kartik Shanker, of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment and Dakshin Foundation. “In other parts of the coast such as Odisha, the misapplication of regulations to artisanal fishers has driven a wedge between conservationists and communities that is very hard to reverse. This helps neither the turtles nor the artisanal and marginalised fishermen on the coast. This kind of a regulation will have the same result; all the fishermen along the coast will start to hate turtles because their livelihood is being affected by them.”

Balu added that small fishermen in Tamil Nadu are very supportive of turtle conservation efforts as they understand the need to protect them.

“For sea turtle conservationists like us who operate with volunteers, these fishermen are our best friends,” said Balu. “They stay up with the volunteers to point out the nests when the [turtle] tracks are washed away by the tide. Without their help, we could miss many of the nests.”

State offers a reprieve

The government order traces its roots to a story published in January 2015 in the Times of India titled “Murder most foul: 35 turtles washed ashore”, which mentioned how trawlers were to blame for the deaths of sea turtles. This prompted a High Court judge to file a writ petition, directing the government to ensure the safety of the endangered species.

With suggestions from non-governmental organisations working in this space and an independent audit by conservationist Shekar Dattatri, the Fisheries Department passed the order on September 27.

Although none of the previous reports suggested that motorised boats be banned, and said that fishermen be sensitised to the matter instead, the department applied the ban to all fishing vessels. In fact, the amicus curaie, a lawyer who advises the court in a case, suggested that the ban be increased to six months – from November to April – and apply to the entire coastline.

The final hearing is scheduled for November 28.

On November 4, protests by fishermen were held across 25 fishing villages in Chennai and Kancheepuram districts. Two days later, the Fisheries Department called for a meeting with the heads of all fishing cooperatives.

After the fishing communities represented their concerns, the department provided a verbal assurance that it would modify the order to exclude motorised country crafts that run at a maximum speed of 10 horse power.

The department, however, prohibited the use of ray nets, or thirukuvalai, used to catch skate ray fish, which can cause great harm to sea turtles.

Damaging trawlers

Though the government order restricts fishing vessels within five nautical miles of potential nesting and breeding sites, trawlers, which are large-scale fishing vessels, are permitted to venture beyond that zone.

This is why conservationists have called for strict implementation of a law that requires these bigger vessels to fit Turtle Excluder Devices, a contraption that allows sea turtles to escape from their nets.

However, trawler operators prefer not to install the devices as they say that along with turtles, many fish escape.

Conservationists admit that it is difficult to monitor whether trawlers have installed the devices.

“Even if you fit the device on your net, when you go out fishing, you can always tie the trap door shut,” said Kartik Shanker. “It’s very hard to monitor and enforce the use. It is very easy for fishermen to subvert the usage of these devices, even if they are willing to fit them on their nets, which at this point they are not. This remains a problem even in countries like the US which have a much longer history of implementing Turtle Excluder Devices.”

Shanker said that the trawling industry in India has a very low profit margin at present, so it is unlikely that they will use Turtle Excluder Devices.

Across the world, there have been several conflicts between fishermen and authorities over the use of these contraptions because of the loss of catch they are believed to cause.

Corrections and clarifications:This story has been edited to remove an error that misstated the conservation status of olive ridley turtles.

The right machine can save water, power consumption, time, energy and your clothes from damage.

In 2010, Han Rosling, a Swedish statistician, convinced a room full of people that the washing machine was the greatest invention of the industrial revolution. In the TED talk delivered by him, he illuminates how the washing machine freed women from doing hours of labour intensive laundry, giving them the time to read books and eventually join the labour force. Rosling’s argument rings true even today as it is difficult to deny the significance of the washing machine in our everyday lives.

For many households, buying a washing machine is a sizable investment. Oddly, buyers underestimate the importance of the decision-making process while buying one and don’t research the purchase as much as they would for a television or refrigerator. Most buyers limit their buying criteria to type, size and price of the washing machine.

Visible technological advancements can be seen all around us, making it fair to expect a lot more from household appliances, especially washing machines. Here are a few features to expect and look out for before investing in a washing machine:

Cover your basics

Do you wash your towels every day? How frequently do you do your laundry? Are you okay with a bit of manual intervention during the wash cycle? These questions will help filter the basic type of washing machine you need. The semi-automatics require manual intervention to move clothes from the washing tub to the drying tub and are priced lower than a fully-automatic. A fully-automatic comes in two types: front load and top load. Front loading machines use less water by rotating the inner drum and using gravity to move the clothes through water.

Simple steps to get the best from your washing machineSimple steps to get the best from your washing machineSimple steps to get the best from your washing machine

Size matters

The size or the capacity of the machine is directly proportional to the consumption of electricity. The right machine capacity depends on the daily requirement of the household. For instance, for couples or individuals, a 6kg capacity would be adequate whereas a family of four might need an 8 kg or bigger capacity for their laundry needs. This is an important factor to consider since the wrong decision can consume an unnecessary amount of electricity.

Machine intelligence that helps save time

In situations when time works against you and your laundry, features of a well-designed washing machine can come to rescue. There are programmes for urgent laundry needs that provide clean laundry in a super quick 15 to 30 minutes’ cycle; a time delay feature that can assist you to start the laundry at a desired time etc. Many of these features dispel the notion that longer wash cycles mean cleaner clothes. In fact, some washing machines come with pre-activated wash cycles that offer shortest wash cycles across all programmes without compromising on cleanliness.

The green quotient

Despite the conveniences washing machines offer, many of them also consume a substantial amount of electricity and water. By paying close attention to performance features, it’s possible to find washing machines that use less water and energy. For example, there are machines which can adjust the levels of water used based on the size of the load. The reduced water usage, in turn, helps reduce the usage of electricity. Further, machines that promise a silent, no-vibration wash don’t just reduce noise – they are also more efficient as they are designed to work with less friction, thus reducing the energy consumed.

Customisable washing modes

Crushed dresses, out-of-shape shirts and shrunken sweaters are stuff of laundry nightmares. Most of us would rather take out the time to hand wash our expensive items of clothing rather than trusting the washing machine. To get the dirt out of clothes, washing machines use speed to first agitate the clothes and spin the water out of them, a process that takes a toll on the fabric. Fortunately, advanced machines come equipped with washing modes that control speed and water temperature depending on the fabric. While jeans and towels can endure a high-speed tumble and spin action, delicate fabrics like silk need a gentler wash at low speeds. Some machines also have a monsoon mode. This is an India specific mode that gives clothes a hot rinse and spin to reduce drying time during monsoons. A super clean mode will use hot water to clean the clothes deeply.

Washing machines have come a long way, from a wooden drum powered by motor to high-tech machines that come equipped with automatic washing modes. Bosch washing machines include all the above-mentioned features and provide damage free laundry in an energy efficient way. With 32 different washing modes, Bosch washing machines can create custom wash cycles for different types of laundry, be it lightly soiled linens, or stained woollens. The ActiveWater feature in Bosch washing machines senses the laundry load and optimises the usage of water and electricity. Its EcoSilentDrive motor draws energy from a permanent magnet, thereby saving energy and giving a silent wash. The fear of expensive clothes being wringed to shapelessness in a washing machine is a common one. The video below explains how Bosch’s unique VarioDrumTM technology achieves damage free laundry.